Grit Lab Report

Hi Jayden,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 5: I have an interest that is not only enjoyable but also aligns with my personal values .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were achievement, self-direction, and benevolence.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was emotional stability.

You said your top three talents were analytic, social, and musical.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a pretty good idea about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to six pack .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said sleep at 10:45 after studying for midterm .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said run Chicago well rested .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said procrastination during the day .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: when I get home, I will start studying .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt hally when receiving critical feedback, and hally when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling a moderate amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being jobs .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Coach .

In one word, you said it made you feel thruving .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

happiness is chasing a goal and felling good about it. Life is about setting those goals.
happiness drives grit
Happiness is about aligning interests and doing them
gratitude, time check, prepared questions
if-then WOOP planing doubles the chance of success
our confidence matters and can roeidcut future outcomes
Advice over feedback
growth mindset and grit are cyclical; stress can increase our performance
mentorship is so important; seek out multiple mentors
you can be smart with your giving

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Kyulee Kim
Jayden brings a delightful energy to our team, making every interaction with him enjoyable. Beyond that, Jayden consistently shows kindness that is truly admirable. From organizing team dinners to always being proactive in taking on tasks for the team, he exemplifies the spirit of collaboration. His genuine care for others was always evident during team discussions. The team dinner he organized was one of the many examples of his organizational skills and his commitment to creating a positive and supportive team environment. In Jayden's Discovery project presentation, I was not only impressed by his achievements but also gained valuable insights into the dedication and patience required for running, especially when undertaking a marathon. Running a marathon is no small feat, and Jayden's commitment to researching, creating a training plan, and sticking to it is highly respectable. The discipline and perseverance needed for such an endeavor reflect his grit. I could see how passionate he is about running and, more importantly, how he uses it as a tool for self-growth, pushing his limits.
Allison Xiao
Jayden is extremely kind and thoughtful. During our group discussions, he was always able to offer additional insights, as self-reflection and self-improvements are domains he excels in. By the same token, he is an attentive listener who makes conversations easy. I think that no matter what he decides to do in the future, he has the grit and the learning ability to find success no matter where he goes. I thought your Discovery Project presentation was super unique and memorable! I really admire your commitment to doing something that you yourself admit is painful. You really did give off a professional TEDtalk vibe, and I was super engaged the entire time. Forgive me if I’m maybe extrapolating but I feel like the goal to run the Chicago marathon was a culmination of many goals in your life, and it’s so inspiring to witness you succeed. Again, congrats on your time!!!
Neel Jain
As a student in Grit Lab 101, I've witnessed how Jayden Khuu brings a natural calming, leadership, and caring presence to any group dynamic. Jayden is very secure and confident within himself that translates to a more calming energy within the group. He displays exceptional emotional intelligence and shared personal topics relating to his relationship with his father and roommate, all of which brought our group closer. Whenever I had an interesting question to pose to the group, I'd immediately ask Jayden since he always displays nuanced thinking and intellectual curiosity. Jayden is also exceptionally generous. He lent his place for one of our gratitude initiatives to bake cookies for our friends and took us out for happy hour. Lastly, as a passionate runner who recently completed a marathon, I have no doubt Jayden will become an exemplar grit paragon in any endeavor he pursues. It's been a pleasure to get to know Jayden and I hope to stay in touch with him. From your discovery project presentation, I appreciated how genuine and vivid you were when delivering your presentation. I honestly think that your delivery was one of the strongest out of the class by keeping it interactive and conveying vulnerability and authenticity. Your genuine passion toward running really shined through your presentation. Kudos to completing the Chicago Marathon for your project - that is unbelievably impressive. Through your presentation, I learned how despite the difficulty and painstaking process of running, it is an incredibly rewarding process that has been a major part of your life.

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.